


a pinch of love

by deniigiq



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Anger Management, Gen, Stress Baking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 11:44:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13410564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq
Summary: Matt is baking for Foggy and Karen. And that is final. And he doesn't need help.





	a pinch of love

Matt is a dreadful cook. It has nothing to do with a lack of senses or even his enhanced ones. It has everything to do with him just being a terrible cook. Foggy considers himself a decent cook; he appreciates nice things. Fresh ground cinnamon. Caramelized onions. Oranges picked right off the tree. Matt has no interest in such things. Well, that’s not entirely true. Matt appreciates good pizza and Thai food and whiskey, but shows absolutely no interest in trying to make those things with his own two hands. Foggy wonders about this sometimes because Matt has told him that he can taste and smell the traces of the hands which prepared his food. Foggy has seen him wince and politely spit things into napkins before, which no one has ever mentioned. People just figure he’s picky.

All of this is to give appropriate gravity to the current situation which is Matt trying to bake cookies in his kitchen. Foggy offered to help and was met with The Clenched Jaw of Determination. He has thus far offered to help six times, and has been rating Matt’s “NO”s on a volume scale. The last two were definitely 7s and the one before that was an 8.5 (mostly because it was accompanied by an “I have EVERYTHING UNDER CONTROL.”)

Foggy wonders how a man with two degrees, actual ninja reflexes, and the ability to charm half the population of New York can be felled by double chocolate cookies. Cookies are like the tricycles of baking; if you can’t make cookies you are definitely too far out of your league.

He watches Matt measure baking powder while cursing at his talking scale.

“4 point 4 grams.” Says the scale.

Matt scrapes a tiny amount of powder back into the container.

“3 point 5 grams.” Says the scale.

Matt dips back into the container and adds a teeny sprinkle.

“4 point 8 grams.” Says the scale.

Matt’s neck is bulging slightly with his effort not to Hulk Smash his scale. Foggy considers telling him that he could also just scrape his spoon across the flat panel in the top of the container (he’d explained this to Matt before, he really had. Let him feel how the mouth of some bottles were different than others) and move on with his life, but Matt’s brain doesn’t run on practicalities sometimes. He’s also one of those people who follows recipes to the letter even if that means that they taste like shit.

“4 point 0 grams.” Says the scale.

Matt sighs in relief and dumps the powder into the bowl. Foggy is waiting to see what he does with the butter.

Matt leans over and taps at his computer a little bit to get the next step.

“Add two eggs to the sugar mixture.” The computer says. Matt feels for his eggs. He’d literally commandeered Foggy’s kitchen and demanded Foggy help him lay out all of the ingredients on his countertop. Foggy was unsure how Matt rationalized this with his apparently burning desire to make surprise cookies for their office. Two thirds of their office was already involved; so apparently these cookies were a Karen-surprise and a Foggy-kind-gesture.

Matt found his eggs. He was trying to crack them on the rim of the bowl. Foggy could already feel the impending egg shells in his teeth.

“If you crack it on a flat surface,” he pipes in, helpfully, “there are less chances of getting shell in the bowl.” Matt turns his face in his direction and jaws at him, but then he relents and taps the eggs on the counter before pulling them open above the bowl.

Foggy settles back in and watches Matt scrub his hands in the sink before tapping at his computer again.

“Beat the sugar and egg mixture to combine. Then sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl.”

“How many bowls do you think I have?” Matt demands of the computer. “What’d it do to earn the right to be sifted? Why do you have to sift it?”

The computer lets him seethe while he digs through Foggy’s utensil jar on the counter to find a whisk. He beats the sugar and egg mixture within an inch of its eggy life and then set about rifling through Foggy’s pots and pans cabinet to find another bowl. Foggy’s just about to tell him he could sift the thing onto wax paper and then transfer it back to the original bowl when Matt lets out a noise of triumph and pops back up with a bowl Foggy didn’t think he even owned. He sifts the flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking-soda into the new bowl and then scrapes the tortured eggs and sugar (really, they probably weren’t supposed to be fluffy but Matt had some aggression issues, it was fine) and sets about combining them. Foggy waits for the butter. Matt does not touch the butter.

He tries to pound the mixture into sticky submission with a wooden spoon.

“Why is it still dry?” he demands after a few minutes.

“I dunno what does the recipe say?” Foggy ventures. Agency. Matt has agency. Matt jaws at him. He reluctantly taps at the computer which, predictably tells him:

“Into the large bowl, add the sugar and egg mixture, then add 200 grams of softened butter. Mix to combine.”

Matt reaches for the butter, dragging his egg-damp sleeve through the flour on the counter, and locates it. He plops the sticks on the scale which chirps out “202 grams.” 2 grams too many; probably grating on the plane of Matt’s existence judging from the eyebrows. Foggy always wondered if Matt had a “fuck it” expression; it was an unlikely thing in his experience. Matt was a very level-headed, constantly vigilant, very Catholic human being. He did not “fuck it” lightly.

And yet he did; he went to just dump the sticks into the bowl, but then realized halfway through the motion that they were wrapped in paper. He jawed at the butter. Set them down and furiously shook them out of their wrappers into the bowl individually. Foggy had never seen such stressful baking. It was kind of delightful. From the safety of the couch. Maybe Matt had the right idea in not letting him help.  

Before eschewing the spoon for his hands to mix the mass, he tapped at the computer to ensure there’d be no surprises. Then he adds the prescribed vanilla. Then he scrubs his hands. And then he digs them into the bowl, and with a violent kneading gesture, turns the mass into a reasonable-looking cookie paste. After a few cursory digs, he seems satisfied and sets about scrubbing his hands in the sink. He pokes the computer with a suspicion that should be reserved for sea-life and Jello.

“Mix in the chocolate chunks.” Matt glares at his newly clean hands. He shuffles back to the counter and empties two bags of chocolate chips, one dark chocolate, one white, on top of his dough before proceeding to work them into the dough almost like a normal person.

“Form the dough into walnut-sized lumps with your hands or a spoon and bake on a 9 by 13 inch pan covered with parchment paper at 350 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes per batch. When ready, remove from the pan and place on a baking rack to dry.” The computer states.

Matt glares in the direction of Foggy’s couch. Foggy waits.

“I need help,” Matt grinds out, “knowing where to put them on the pan.”

“So they don’t run into each other?” Foggy offers. Matt nods. Foggy is so proud, look at Matt, asking for help. He gets up and joins Matt in forming little tacky balls of dough and arranging them on the sheet. A little tension leaves Matt’s shoulders and he lets Foggy help him through the next three trays.

Karen is very surprised with the cookies the next morning, and they don’t taste that bad either.


End file.
